Not fit for purpose?

from Stardock Forums

Hi, I've recently bought Objectdock plus, and after attempting to get it to work, I seem to be finding that it simply does not function properly with anything other than the default settings.

 

Basically, all i am doing is attempting to create a tabbed dock with a list of applications. Problems are many and varied, some stemming from the fact that it seems impossible to customise in any way that is not entirely rudimentary, and in other cases existing features seem to be simply broken.

 

Firstly, displaying icon names does not seem to work at all, all i get is the first few letters of the name then it cuts off with a ... . This seems to be because there is no functionality to specify the spacing between icons. Pressing View -> as Names is a good example of this.

Secondly, changing icon size completely breaks down, icons are re-sized off the edge of the screen, meaning i cannot use them, due in part to the next point.

 

There seems to be no functionality for scrolling up or down a list of programs, if i try to add more programs than will fit on screen, it happily just places them into the void above or below the screen, never to be seen again.

 

In short, this software seems to be largely unusable, and does not function as advertised. Am i missing something fundamental here, or should I be demanding a refund?

 

update: i've managed to get it to scroll down the list by manually resizing the dock, rather than allowing it to snap to the side of the screen as per default. Doesn't work when you try to display without icons though.

objectdock
4,177 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

And it's now crashed and reset itself to the single default dock, losing hours of painstaking fiddly setup. A team of monkeys with typewriters could produce better software than this...

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The vast majority of folks don't run into these problems, paulwhooper.

I'd suggest you detail your problems with the software (include a screen shot of the problem if you think it'll help) in an email to support@stardock.com . Include the url of this post in it.

Then wait for an actual person to answer (the 'auto reply' should be saved as it has your ticket number) before writing again as not doing so will kick your email to the end of the queue.

Support works M-F, 9am-5pm EST. Don't expect an answer (unless a Support person sees this post) until Tuesday as Mondays can be hectic.

There are several members quite silled with Object ock, so you might luck out before then. Hope it gets sorted quickly, paulwhooper. 

Make sure you detail your OS, RAM, graphics card and driver (include its version number) and how you downloaded the software.

By the way, I hope you uninstalled any prior version you might have had (using Gamestop Impulse if that was how you installed it originally) and cleaned the registry of any leftovers. If you installed a prior version using some other method, I'd use CCleaner to remove it and clean the registry. Finally, I hope you downloaded your software with your firewall/security apps turned off, as they can be 'over zealous'.

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Regarding the firewall comment, while a firewall could cause problems during download it is unlikely to cause problems after that point.  I would never recommend disabling a firewall to download software unless repeated downloads have failed with a corrupted file that fails to install (or in the case of Impulse / SDC, the inability to perform the download)

Anti malware apps on the other hand are problematic as they seem to sometimes want to convince the user how important they are and this leads to many false positives and breaking applications that are doing perfectly legitimate things.  The worst ones are the ones which do things silently in the background without letting the user know they just broke something.

However from the description of issues above I don't think an anti malware app is causing those problems.

I am not involved in the development of this product and so cannot offer any assistance on your problems, but I will make sure the technical support guys are aware of this post.

Mailing support@stardock.com with the information that DrJBHL suggests would be a good idea.  Once you have done this you may want to post the ticket ID here so support can look it up easily.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Thanks, Neil. I didn't really think the firewall/antiviral thing was significant... not being a support person, my advice probably won't save the day. Thanks for looking in, though.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate the attempts to help me out, particularly as the tone of my first post could be considered somewhat grouchy ;).

 

Basically, on reflection my problems seem to be to do with tabbed docks, the quick launch docks work just fine. I don't think I'm running into any errors the tech support can help me with, simply lack of functionality in relation to things I'm trying to achieve. My main problems twofold, that there seems to be no way to specify icon spacing, which means that when file names are displayed they are frequently cramped out of existence. Secondly, less of a show stopper and more of an irritation, resizing icons changes the size of the dock - even when i've locked the dock size, which can push the draggable part of the dock off screen.

Basically, these are not big issues in the grand scheme, but petty niggles - standard functions of a gui that are missing and make me feel more like i'm participating in a beta test rather than using a commercial piece of software.

 

Ah well, on a more positive note I've downloaded and am using fences desktop. Intuitive, simple, and it feels like a natural extension of windows. Excellent!

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting paulwhooper, reply 5
Thanks for the replies, I appreciate the attempts to help me out, particularly as the tone of my first post could be considered somewhat grouchy
End of paulwhooper's quote

Gld you to relaxed a bit... easier to interact and try to help.

I'd suggest giving support a chance to help before giving up. Then, if support can't help with these problems and if the dock function is your major concern and focus, give Nexus a try.

It won't interfere with Stardock software you might have. It has a free version (good for many functions) and a full blown one with all the bells and whistles. You can compare features and see if it will be compatible with your needs here: http://winstep.net/nexus.asp .

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks, I've taken a look at nexus, it too almost but not quite does what i want. Ah well, i've got some free time coming up, time to fire up visual studio and brush up on my c++, see if i can come up with something that suits me better...

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

You've touched on a couple things that seem to be there no matter. If the words on the tabs end with ... then the only thing to do is to drag the tabs (dock) bigger. I do wish we could stack the tabs (or if we can I've not figured it out) There are a couple other cosmetic things that are simply "there". I just remember the positions and sometimes the colors of the tabs I need, or the group when I click on the tab (wrong group, next one over) You will find that you will learn that quickly. There is a setting that whichever tab you mouse across will be the one to open, it speeds things up a bunch.  Find the dock save button, I think that will take the frustration out some (help me out guys)

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Grab your tabbed dock at the right end, bottom if vertical, empty space, and drag it to resize it, that will also resize the tabs so that the text isn't truncated. Like LizMarr said.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

It would be quite an improvement to be able to select the font parameters associated with icon names. I concur that this should be considered basic functionality. I've run into various bugs and crashes that demonstrate the ObjectDock Plus program has not been comprehensively tested. It's definitely a rather raw product. But it does include some useful functionality and I'm hoping to eventually get it to work well enough to like it.